MILES: Chapter Four, pt. 4

“Fine lookin’ woman in there.” Willie wasn’t really asking, nor was he expecting a response, he just lacked the complex vocabulary to find anything else to say.

Patterson lit his cigarette with a decorative Zippo and mumbled something unintelligible as a reply.

“Damn, if that don’t beat all,” Willie added, admiring the womanly curves now visible from his vantage point behind her.

Through the picture windows the three – really the two, since Patterson Malone didn’t gives two shits about what was going on inside – could see the woman talking to Doc Brown, and they could hear bits of the conversation. That’s when Del noticed a distinct lack of presence at the far the end of the bar.

“Where the hell is Miles?” asked Del.

“He left,” mumbled Patterson, not looking up. “He ran out of there like he heard his house was on fire.”

“Sonuva bitch,” said Del settling into a chair on the porch and lighting a cigarette. Willie allowed himself one more longing glance through the window at the bar before sitting down and lighting a cigarette as well.

“Well, yer choices are a bit limited tonight,” said Doc Brown. “But I’d be happy tah give you the nickel tour.”

“I was here three months ago,” she said, annoyed. “With my family. There was a man here, he… he had a seizure of some kind. You can’t have forgotten him.”

Doc Brown turns away and continues drying dishes. “Sorry, miss, he ain’t been here since. And if’n you ain’t gon’ order nothin’ then I got nothing for ya.”

“Could you tell me where he lives?” she asked. “Where I can find him?”

Doc Brown looked down, unable to meet her gaze. “It ain’t mah place to say,” he replied. “Doctor-patience privilege, ‘n all that.”

Doc shuffled away, focused intently on drying glasses. The few remaining men in the bar refuse to make eye contact. Karen looked around, desperately.

“Please, it’s important,” she said. “I need to find him. Can’t anybody here tell me anything?”

Still outside smoking, Willie and Del could hear the woman’s raised voice.

“Please, anybody! Somebody here knows him! I need to know where he is! I need to know what he knows!”

Doc Brown leaned in and addressed the woman quietly.

“Best just leave that man alone, y’hear? He ain’t right inna head. But if’n you just gonna make a fuss, I’m canna do nothing for ya.”

The woman’s face fell. She turned for the door, deflated and dejected.

“Sorry to bother you. I’m sorry…”

The woman walked outside. Patterson watched her leave, then ground his cigarette butt under his heel and walked back inside. Del and Willie sat and watched her, smoking in silence. Del scowled and Willie shook his head in disbelief.

Karen was halfway to her car when Del shouted to her.

“Lady,” he cried. “Hey, Lady!”

Karen stopped and turned around.

“You looking for that sonuvabitch Miles? Yeah, he was just here. Bolted with his tail between his yellow legs.”

Karen’s eyes grew wide. “Miles?”

“Lives next the abandoned Auto Parts store on Del Ray,” Del continued. “Big goddamn sign.”

Karen bolted for her car as Del continued to shout, his arms flailing wildly.

“You tell him he’s in for a beatin’! That boy’s gonna wish he was never born!”

The wheels on the blue Impala spun in the gravel, spitting rocks and dirt as the woman peeled out of the lot.

“There goes one well-built chassis,” said Del.

“The car was pretty nice-looking, too,” said Willie, and they both chuckled.

The dust settled in the parking lot as they both sat in silence, absorbing the excitement of the evening, cigarettes dangling from their mouths. After a minute, Willie turned to his brother.

“Del, you alright to drive?”

Del shook his head. “Nope. You?”

“Nope.”

Willie pondered this a moment. “You wanna git another round?”

A slow smile crossed Del’s face.

“Yup.”

MILES: Chapter Four, pt. 3

The low growl of an engine cut through the quiet night. Willie looked up, surprised to see an unfamiliar car, a beautifully maintained baby blue Chevrolet Impala – a 58’, by the looks of it – with a soft convertible top, pulling into the gravel parking lot. He was even more surprised when the door opened and out emerged a slender and beautiful woman with stunning eyes and long brunette curls that fell about her shoulders.

Del stopped his pacing and stared as well, his cigarette nearly falling from his mouth. She walked up to the porch and passed between them. She glanced up at the two men and her eyes flitted back and forth, not quite meeting their unabashed gawking. She looked scared, but not scared of them; she walked in the bar with a look of a newborn kitten, something naïve and curious and in wholly out of her depth.

Miles had not moved from his spot at the end of the bar when the car pulled in. He could hear the rumble of the engine outside, the sound of gravel kicked up into the underbelly. There was a buzzing in the back of his skull, a nagging feeling that he couldn’t shake, some unpleasant sensation that the whiskey had failed to wash away. Something’s wrong, said the voice inside his head. You shouldn’t be here. He sat up sharply when the he heard the door slam, and the blood drained completely from his face. He stood, unsteady on his feet, and grasped at the bar for support. His head was suddenly pounding. Danger, said the voice. Escape. Escape.

Doc Brown shuffled over. “You all right, Miles?” he asked. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Miles looked up at Doc Brown, a panicked and desperate expression on his face. “You keep my tab open until tomorrow?” he asked.

“Sure thing, Miles. What’s–”

Before Doc Brown could finish forming the words Miles had bolted to the back of the pub. There was an exit near the bathrooms, and Miles was through it and into the cold air outside in seconds. The room fell silent as he left. Doc Brown stared at the door with a glass and a towel in his hands, completely unmoving. The only motion was Patterson Malone, who stood from his booth and tapped out a cigarette from a fresh pack.

The pub was still quiet as the woman entered through the front, the slam of the door behind her a startling sound in the eerie silence. Doc Brown looked up her, and one by one so did every other head in the room. She hesitated in the doorway, her soft eyes nervously scanning her unexpected audience. Patterson gently brushed past her, cigarette behind his ear, and he nodded politely to her as he exited to the front porch. She stood for a moment longer, clutching her purse to herself in a protective stance, before timidly approached the bar.

“Hello,” she said to Doc Brown. “I’m looking for a man.”

MILES: Chapter Four, pt. 2

“Well, how ‘bout you, Miles? You don’t look like you have much goin’ on. Care to join us for a round o’ pool?”

“Leave off, Del,” said Willie from the far side of the pool table. “He ain’t hurtin’ nobody.” Del dismissed him with a wave of his hand.

“You jus’ sit here every night, drinkin’ by yo’self. Don’choo got any friends, bud?”

“You leave him alone,” said Willie, insistently. “He’s crazy.”

“I’m just havin’ a little fun,” said Del, ignoring his brother, “Whatsa matter, boy? You really crazy, that it?”

Miles turned to stare into Willie’s face, his pale eyes blazing. His face was thin and hollow, and in the darkness he resembled a jack-o-lantern, with two burning candles shimmering from inside.

“If I’m crazy,” Miles said slowly, deliberately. “What’s that say about a grown man who fantasizes about little boys?”

Del stiffened, like an unseen puppet-master had just yanked several strings and pulled him upright. “Hey, fuck you!” he snapped.

“Fuck me?” asked Miles, eyes ablaze. “Aren’t I a little old for your tastes?”

Del regained his composure and leaned towards Miles in a menacing stare. “I will fuck you up six ways to Sunday, boy,” he growled under his breath.

Miles stared back, his face showing no signs of intimidation.

“Careful,” said Miles. “I bite.”

Del steadied his gaze against Miles, and the two of them stood locked in a battle of willpower: a wiry viper against an overweight sewer rat. Miles slowly opened his mouth into a toothy grin and hissed – a wet, guttural sound.

Del broke their gaze with a shake of his head, crossed the room and threw the pool cue onto the table with a crash.

“Fuck this action, Willie. That boy’s outta his mind,” he said with a snort. “Settle our tab. We’re the fuck out of here.” Del stormed out, leaving his brother to look uncomfortably around the bar before pulling a wad of bills from his pocket and handing them to Doc Brown. Willie looked over at Miles nervously, but Miles had turned his attention back to his drink, staring back to an empty spot in space, and he did not acknowledge Willie’s furtive glance. Willie pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, tapped it in his hand and left the bar and joined his brother.

Doc Brown worked his way down the bar with a towel, wiping down the surface of the counter. He picked up the half-poured pint, and sipped it as he cleaned. He paused when he reached Miles. “One of these days, boy, you gonna start something you won’t be able to finish.”

Miles looked up at him, unconcerned. “Another double,” he said. “And mind your business.”

Doc Brown wandered away, continuing to wipe down the counter, and reached for a fresh rocks glass. He looked around at the near empty bar. “This is my business,” he said under his breath.

Outside, Del paced angrily, sucking frantically on his cigarette. Next to him on the porch, Willie sat lost in thought, taking deliberate drags off his, exhaling the smoke slowly into the cool night air.

“That sonuvabitch,” said Del, his voice laced with venom. “That sonuvabitch, I’ll kill ‘im. You heard what he said. I’ll fucking kill ‘im.”

“Don’t pay him no mind,” said Willie. “He don’t know nothing.”

MILES: Chapter Four, pt. 1

* * * * *

I

* * * * *

DEL AND HIS BROTHER WILLIE were playing pool. It was a Wednesday night, and Doc Brown’s Pub and Eatery was nearly empty. Patterson Malone sat alone in a booth, nursing a whiskey. Martin Fletcher and his wife sat at a table, laughing and joking over dinner. Janine Milner had wandered through earlier with her girlfriends, but they had quickly left when it was clear there were no boys to chat up, no free drinks to be had. Theodore and Pontius sat at one end of the bar, arguing like old men do. And, of course, Miles Braeburn sat at the far end of the bar, alone and away from the other patrons, his finger securely wrapped around a Jack Daniels and ice. The room had gone quiet when he walked in, but Miles had sat down in the same spot he always sat and ordered his whiskey, and the room had quickly returned to its normal volume. Miles wanted to be ignored, and soon he was.

Del lined up his cue, and the table exploded with sound and motion, balls scattering across the table. The seven ball shot across the table and dropped cleanly in the corner pocket.

“Willie,” said Del, obviously pleased with himself. “You gotta learn to play more defensively, else I’m gonna run you right off of this table.”

Del was a physical opposite of his brother: Del was extremely fat while Willie was rail thin; Del was short while Willie was uncomfortably tall; Del’s face looked like someone has mashed it in when he was a child while Willie’s face was bony and angular, his nose long and hooked like a bird’s. Beyond those differences, they were unmistakably brothers; they shared the same pale skin, the same dark and beady eyes, the same greasy brown hair. They even sported the same baseball cap with the logo of the shipping company for which they both worked.

“I ain’t playing for the sake of winning,” said Willie. “I’m jus’ playing for the sake of playing.”

“Seems you is playing for the sake of losing,” said Del, sinking another ball. “Now git us another couple drinks.”

“I got these last couple,” said Willie, frowning as Del lined up against the nine. “B’sides, the Doc’ll be around in another minute; he’ll get us then.”

The cue ball shot across the table and made fierce contact with the nine, which rattled momentarily in the pocket before dropping into the hole and clattering through the mechanisms under the table. Del looked at the table smugly, and then across the room, his eyes falling on Miles, still sitting in the shadows at the end of the bar. A crooked, wicked grin crept across his face.

“Yeah, I’ll git it,” said Del. He crossed the room to the bar, a slow swagger that more closely resembled the waddle of a penguin than anything else. He nestled in between two barstools a few feet from Miles and, still holding the pool cue, flagged down Doc Brown.

“Mr. Brown,” Del said. “Another round for my brother and myself.” Doc Brown grabbed two fresh glasses, eyeing Del suspiciously. “It seems my brother is an unworthy opponent, and grows weary of my kicking his backside every night. I can’t help but wonder if there’s anyone here willing or able to provide me with a bit more of a challenge.”

Doc Brown marked two tallies on their running tab and drifted to the taps, saying nothing. He tilted a pint glass against the spout and pulled the handle without looking at it, his deep-set eyes still watching the two men at the bar. Del turned to Miles with a flourish.

MILES: Chapter Two, pt. 3

* * * * *

I I I

* * * * *

The motorcycle was named Molly. She was a 1974 Harley Sportster with a faded aquamarine body and chrome hardware. She sat in the back of the garage, having remained there, untouched, for weeks. The rest of the garage was cluttered, a disheveled mess of parts and tools, but the bike stood alone on a battered wooden pallet like a shrine, a memento of the long journey ahead, and the painful journey behind.

Beyond the clothes on his back and the money in his pocket, Molly was the only thing Miles brought with him when he arrived in Battle Mountain five years before.

For a while, Miles suspected he had already died, and the road was his own personal hell. The drinking helped a little, pushing the voice back, but the dreams still haunted him – dreams of death and dreams of failure, dreams of defeat and of horrible pain, dreams of everyone he had ever lost. Faces haunted him, just outside his peripheral vision, sorrow-filled faces that filled him regret.

The city was quiet; quiet to his ears and quiet to his mind. Miles had not chosen the city as much as he had just fallen into it; after months of hard riding, desperate to escape and start again, Miles had stumbled through northern Nevada, desperate and hopeless, and was startled to find that the farther he rode, the quieter the voice became, until it faded to almost nothing.

Miles landed, softly, in a small town where the people were quiet and left him alone. Miles drank; he settled in and tried to get comfortable. As a trade, his hands quickly remembered their way around an automobile; he found his father’s passion for fixing cars came naturally to him as well, and worked for Dick Maybury’s Auto. Dick Maybury was a veteran and an eccentric, a introverted widower who lived above the shop and who would not talk about his wife, would not talk about his time in the service, would not talk about his childhood – any questions not about automobiles would be met only with a dismissive wave of his hand. Miles kept quiet and did what he was told, and Miles and Dick Maybury forged what could not quite be called a friendship, instead perhaps a healthy respect for each other until Dick died peacefully in his sleep a year later, and – having no heirs – left the shop to Miles.

For years Miles continued to operate the shop, and spent the leftover hours in the day drinking. The voice faded into the background, the feelings of paranoia subsided and his breakdowns came less and less often. He drank, he waited for something he did not quite understand, and for another year he lived alone and lonely, haunted but no longer tortured. Miles waited, he drank, and the voice faded into near obscurity.

Until the woman, came – the dark-haired woman with the husband and two boys – and the cycle began again. The woman came – with her dark hair and eyes that sparkled like diamonds – and Miles watched her die in the road, her head crushed against a concrete pylon, her husband staring blankly at her, helpless and immobile. The headaches, the fear and paranoia, the overwhelming sense of failure; Miles was struggling to breathe, flailing and grasping at nothing, slipping under the surface: a man, drowning in the open air.

Miles paced around the attached garage of his house, unsettled and impatient. A battered sign hung above his head, swaying in the low breeze: Maybury Auto, Repair and Maintenance. Miles wore dirty overalls and a wrench stuck from his pocket. He had intended on servicing his bike, oiling her gaskets and topping off her fluids, but something weighed on the back of his mind, and he could not focus. The weather report predicted clear skies the following morning, perfect for a ride out into the mountains, perfect for Miles to clear his head, but he continued to pace. Something ate away at his thoughts; he was unable to center himself, unable to settle down.

The morning sun blossomed over the horizon, a great orange fireball against the low mountains.

Miles had disappeared into the bottle for three days, not leaving the house, hallucinating about the dark-haired woman and her two children. She was smiling at him; she was so kind, she had such light, until she was thrown from her vehicle and died in the road.

On the fourth day Miles woke, his head pounding, echoes of memories slipping through cracks in his conscious mind like water through his fingers.

Miles left the house at dawn, walking down the long dirt road to the river. He stood, overlooking the water, his mind awash with regret, feeling more alone than he had in years. He could connect at the river; the water was a conduit to the world he’d left behind.